Page 6 of Prognosis Irreconcilable Differences

CHAPTER TWO

Nathan woke to thesmell of frying bacon and toast and his stomach grumbled. He was starving. His mouth watered. He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw, momentarily wondering where the hell he was. The ceiling didn’t look familiar and he wasn’t in his bed.

He turned his head and saw a half full glass of water on a coffee table and Shep dozing nearby. Then it returned. Driving to see Jacqui. The Porsche getting bogged. Walking in the rain. The flu.

He stretched, feeling only a vague ache now, but malaise sat heavily in his bones. He thought about sitting for a few moments before he attempted it, and was surprised how weak he felt as he levered himself up. The duvet bunched around his waist and he pushed it aside.

Shep woke and lurched slowly up off the floor. ‘Hey, boy,’ he murmured, ruffling the dog’s ears.

He’d missed Shep in the beginning. Terribly. Almost as much as he’d missed Jacqui. Then all too soon life had consumed him and he hadn’t thought about Shep for years.

Maybe that was what he was missing from his life now? Maybe a dog, a pet, would help fill up this strange emptiness that afflicted him from time to time? Give him something to come home to? He made a mental note to check into it when he returned home.

Nathan stood, feeling vaguely light-headed, leaning heavily against the arm of the couch for a few seconds before pushing off and following his nose. He wasn’t sure what day it was, but his stomach felt as if it had contracted down to the size of a walnut, so it had to have been a couple of days since he’d eaten.

He passed a window filtering grey light and vaguely acknowledged the continuing rain. He could hear the sounds of cooking and singing coming from the room ahead, and forced his wooden legs to take bigger strides.

Nathan reached the doorway and stopped abruptly. Jacqui had her back to the door, standing in front of the stove, singing in a fake falsetto and dancing along barefoot to a song from a battered-looking radio nearby.

She was wearing some loose pants that sat low on her hips — probably that hemp stuff she loved so much — and a white strappy singlet that had ridden up to reveal the small of her back. Her bottom was swaying, and she was clicking her fingers to the beat above her head.

The bangles on her arms jingled and the metal of her rings blurred as her fingers wiggled and her corkscrew curls bounced in time.

He smiled at the scene before him. ‘You haven’t changed, I see.’

Jacqui nearly had a heart attack as his voice broke into her tuneless singing. She whirled around abruptly, her heart thundering. He was lounging in her doorway in nothing but his underwear and his stubble as if he belonged there. He had that just-rolled-out-of-bed look she’d always found utterly irresistible, and she was overwhelmed with a surge of lust she hadn’t felt in a decade.

Oh, God! No, no, no. She would not make this easy for him. He couldn’t show up at her door on a dark and stormy night, collapse on her couch for two days, tell her he needed his wife back before lapsing into unconsciousness, and then just expect her to melt into a puddle of desire at his feet.

‘You have.’

And he had. Even with next to nothing on, with his body essentially the same — familiar on so many levels — the changes were undeniable. He wasn’t the boy she’d lain naked with, spinning happy dreams on endless nights. Who’d been content eating cold spaghetti and drinking wine from a cardboard box. Who had thrived under killer shifts and arrogant consultants because he’d loved his job.

That boy was long gone. He was a man now. Successful beyond his wildest dreams. Aside from the designer threads, it was in the way he held himself, the proud tilt of his head, the commanding angle of his jaw. Even knocked flat by the flu, lying naked and vulnerable on her couch, there had been an undeniable authority, a tangible aura of power about him.

Nathan’s gaze was drawn to Jacqueline’s bare midriff, where the top had ridden up. Her belly button was as fascinating as it had always been. He moved higher. As usual she was braless, and he could see that despite her life-long aversion to supportive measures her breasts were still firm, her nipples just visible through the white fabric.

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